The shopman appeared to know them, and though he smiled, he said very respectfully, "What articles can I show you this morning, ladies?" The fairy-like creature in the white beaver, who had been fumbling in her miniature glove, now timidly laid a farthing on the counter, and then turning her back for very shyness on the shopman, raised one small shoulder, and inclining her head towards it, gave an appealing glance at her sister out of the pale-blue eyes. That little lady, thus appealed to, firmly placed another farthing on the board, and said in the tiniest but most decided of voices, "TWO FLAT IRONS, IF YOU PLEASE." Hereupon the shopman produced a drawer from below the counter, and set it before them. What it contained I was not tall enough to see, but out of it he took several flat irons of triangular shape, and apparently made of pewter, or some alloy of tin. These the grey beaver examined and tried upon a corner of her cape, with inimitable gravity and importance. At last she selected two, and keeping one for herself, gave the other to her sister. "Is it a nice one?" the little white-beavered lady inquired. "Very nice." "Kite as nice as yours?" she persisted. "Just the same," said the other firmly. And having glanced at the counter to see that the farthings were both duly deposited, she rolled abruptly over on her seat, and scrambled off backwards, a manœuvre which the other child accomplished with more difficulty. The coats and capes were then put tidy as before, and the two went out of the shop together, hand in hand. Then the old man-servant lifted them into the Spanish saddle, and buckled the strap, and away they went up the steep street, and over the brow of the hill, where trees and palings began to show, the beaver bonnets nodding together in consultation over the flat irons. The commission to paint this water-colour being unfettered in every way, the artist felt herself at liberty to create a colour scheme of her own--hence the changes in the dresses, etc.; also to put an old woman (after a Devonshire cottager) in place of the shopman, and to make the shop a toyshop instead of a tinsmith's. The little girl ironing was painted from a study of a Mr. Hennessy's eldest little daughter; the fair little maiden from Mr. Briton Riviere's eldest daughter. [Illustration: 9. THE SAND-MARTINS' HAUNT _From the Water-colour in the possession of Miss James._ Painted 1876.] I passed an inland cliff precipitate; From tiny caves peeped many a soot-black poll. In each a mother-martin sat elate, And of the news delivered her small soul: "Gossip, how wags the world?" "Well, gossip, well."